Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, on February 12, 1809, sharing the same birthday with Abraham Lincoln. As a young boy he developed an interest in natural history but started his advanced schooling at Edinburgh in medicine, a subject he soon learned to detest. Lat

er at Cambridge, where he went to prepare for a career in the clergy, he became acquainted with a botany professor John Henslow. Henslow encouraged Darwin to take an extended sea voyage and exploration of the world outside of England. Darwin took advantage of the opportunity and became the expedition naturalist and gentlemen's companion to Captain Robert FitzRoy, on the HMS Beagle. The intended 3-year voyage stretched to 5 years, and Darwin had wonderful experiences as he circumnavigated the world. Upon his return to England he arranged his notes and read voraciously in all fields of science, filling notebook after notebook with his insights. He expanded these ideas into a 35-page paper and then into a longer 230-page paper. However, he did not publish his ideas at this time, apparently intending to keep working to produce a larger, more impressive book. In 1839 he married his cousin Emma Wedgewood. They had 10 children together, 7 surviving to adulthood, and lived a long and happy life together. In 1858, after working 20 years on his theory, Darwin received a package containing an outline of a theory nearly identical to his own but written by Alfred Russell. Although both men are credited with the theory of natural selection, priority for the idea of natural selection cannot be denied to Darwin, as he had recorded his ideas to paper in 1838 when Wallace was still a teenager. The Origin of Species was published in 1859 and became an instant best seller and an instant source of controversy. Darwin was plagued by poor health, did not seek out conflict or controversy, and demurred when occasions arose to discuss or debate his views in public. At the June 1860 public debate held at Oxford, with more than 700 persons crowded into a lecture room, Darwin was conspicuously absent. It was his longtime friends and supporters Joseph Hooker and Darwin’s bulldog Thomas Huxley who defended his views against the attacks of Admiral Robert FitzRoy, Richard Owen, and Soapy Sam Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford. Altogether, Darwin wrote 14 books, in addition to 4 monographs on the taxonomy and biology of barnacles, and his narrative of the Voyage of the Beagle. After Darwin had written down his ideas in his long paper of 1844 he was stricken with bouts of bad health and several tragedies in his personal life. In early 1882 he had sev

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